more six week blues

I should also mention, for the sake of science and full disclosure, that I’m HUNGRY this week. Hungry for breads and cakes, unfortunately. In addition, my mouth is producing rivers of saliva, with a slightly metallic taste, and I’m tired, falling asleep at 9:30 pm, but waking up at four with weird half-dreams about babies.

As long as I don’t start throwing up, I’m not complaining.

weeks five and six

Heading into my fifth week, things got kind of rough. I went on a camping trip and couldn’t even drink a beer! I couldn’t eat the fancy quesadillas our friends brought (no soft cheeses, girls). And no cowboy coffee for me. (Sure, the books say you can safely have 300 grams of caffeine a day, but then they all say we should give it up anyway, just to be 100% safe. Doublespeak and guilt trips: that’s why I avoid the books.)

A more serious note: I started having cramps. I’d read that mild cramps were pretty normal, and I’d had some, right around the time when I found out I was pregnant. For a couple of days I’d felt like I was about to start my period.

But these were worse. These were curl-up-on-the-floor-and-try-to-breathe cramps. They lasted for 15-30 minutes, and would come on several times a day. Twice I caved and took acetaminophen. I was scared. I’d never heard of anyone having cramps this bad. Was it a bad sign? Was I going to lose the baby?

They subsided after a week. But the fear remains, in the first trimester. It leaves me unwilling to get excited about the baby; I don’t want to get attached until I know I won’t lose her. But twelve weeks is a long time to put your heart on hold, to remain emotionally uncommitted to a baby inside you.

That baby is the size of a lentil now

Weeks three and four

I felt different for the next couple of days. My breasts were tender and I was having crazy dreams. Nine days after I ovulated, I had some tears and mood swings. Eleven days after I ovulated I started having light cramps. And then, for a couple of days, I felt absolutely normal.

Any real or imagined “symptoms” of pregnancy disappeared, and all I felt was crazy as I counted the days until I could take a pregnancy test and get results.

I took one on mother’s day, ten days after I ovulated. Nothing.

Two days later, I sneaked into the bathroom in the school hallway.  My students were mostly gone for the day.  And there it was: a little blue cross. I burst into tears.

My only thought: I’m not ready for this.

My husband’s only thought, when I told him that night on our dinner date at Nana’s Soup House: happiness and unbelief.

We’re having a baby.

the first two weeks

You’re not really pregnant during the first two weeks of your pregnancy. These are the first two weeks of the last menstrual cycle before you became pregnant. So, when you find out that you are pregnant, doctors might say you are five weeks along, when really you’ve only been pregnant for three weeks.

Do doctors just rejoice in making things complicated? Maybe. Or maybe they just don’t believe women are smart enough to know when we ovulate and thus predict a closer date of conception.

When I ovulated, I felt it, a twinge in my lower left side. I was 17 days into my cycle (not 14 like the doctors would assume). And sometime in the next 24 hours (since that’s how long eggs live unless they are fertilized), I became pregnant.

I had only been off birth control pills for 17 days. Defying my family history, I became pregnant on the first “try”.